Ready for Some New and Scary Taxes?

To watch "The Talking Points Memo" click here.

Hi, I'm Bill O'Reilly.  Thank you for watching us tonight.

Are you ready for some new and very frightening taxes?  That is the subject of this evening's Talking Points Memo .

Now that the politicians are safely elected, the tax drumbeat is getting louder.  Here in New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants a better than 2 percent commuter tax on everybody who travels to the city to work.  This is on top of the city's income tax, which we all have to pay.  Los Angeles doesn't have an income tax.  Boston doesn't have one, neither does Chicago.  In fact, nobody has one except the Big Apple.

This, of course, is taxation without representation, because commuters can't vote in New York City elections.  And the commuter tax, I believe, is even unconstitutional, because it intrudes on freedom of movement.

If that tax is passed, every town in America could tax you just for showing up.  Walk down the street in Abilene, you could be taxed because you are using that city's sidewalks.  Drive into Mobile, you could be forced to pay an admission fee.  New York City already taxes hotel rooms, rental cars, gasoline, cigarettes, booze, bridges, tunnels, parking, and everything else that people need or use.

Flat-out disgraceful.  The reason that taxes are going up almost everywhere is entitlements, but not welfare or Food Stamps or school lunches.  No.  The huge nut the cities and counties have to pay comes in the form of disability payments and pensions.  In order to get elected, politicians have given unions enormous perks and power, and millions of workers have figured out that disability payments are an easy way to get to the sunshine in Florida.

In California, Medical fraud cost the taxpayers billions, and in every state, wise guys have figured out how to beat the financial system, which is generally chaotic.

This morning, I was talking with a Nassau County cop who makes $84,000 a year, the highest basic police pay in the nation.  That policeman has three children, and the average house on Long Island sells for about $250,000.  That's the average house.  Property taxes on the island have just been raised to the highest level in the country.

At the end of the year, that officer's pay is gone.  He's lucky if he can save a few thousand for a college fund.  There is something very, very wrong when $84,000 is just-getting-by money.

Fraud and waste are going unchecked in the public sector, and few if any politicians care.  Certainly Mayor Bloomberg doesn't care.  His solution is to hit the working guy again, make it even more difficult for him or her to raise a family in decent surroundings.

Most of us were sold the American dream as kids.  As Billy Joel sang in Allentown, "If we work hard, if we behave, we prosper."  That is no longer true in America.  Working Americans are getting hammered by irresponsible government and unchecked corruption.  Next to terrorism, that is this country's most intense problem.

And that's The Memo .

The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day

Time now for "The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day" which involves me, your humble correspondent.  It is ironic that the dumbest guy in the world when it comes to computers, me, has a brand-new Web site.

A couple of years ago, my staff gave me a Christmas present, billoreilly.com.  It's one word, no apostrophe, dot com.  And now the site is a reality.  They tell me it's pretty spiffy, and I actually punched it up and concurred.  They did a very nice job with the design.

The goal of the site is to provide you with signed books and other things at Christmas and other gift occasions and to give Factor fans basically a backstage access, whatever that means.  So it's here.  You have been warned.  You might want to check it out.

— You can watch Bill O'Reilly's Talking Points and "Most Ridiculous Item" weeknights at 8 & 11p.m. ET on the Fox News Channel. Send your comments to: oreilly@foxnews.com